Re-carpet of boat

A buddy of mine is wanting to re-carpet their boat and I volunteered to help.
Has anybody done this? If so, what are some of the techniques, ie cutting, laying it down etc. What tools? What glue? etc.

Chris
get the grip you deserve
www.wakejunky.com

Also for sale
http://home.surewest.net/cfoye/96SportNautique/96SportNautique.htm

Well the spray 3M adhesive should work for glue. The factory and upholstery shops use a more professional grade that is purchased in bulk. Use the old carpet as a template for cutting out the new one. So do not stretch it too much as you remove it. Tools....how about a knife??? hehe and whatever you need to dissasemble the boat. Spray the glue and let it dry then spray it on again and apply when tacky. Work a small section at a time and you should have no problems. You can do it!

If you do stretch or ruin the old carpet while removing it you can make a template out of craft paper and duct tape available at OSH and Depot.
Pat

When you take out the old carpet, try and keep it in as large of pieces as possible, then use them as the template. My friend did that and the carpet came out perfect.

How do you get out the old carpet is it just glued down? Then is there a bunch of glue left on the fibreglass?
Chris--you should just slap down gator grip on the floor!

Spray glue will not hold for long (is spray glue good for anything?). Go to Home Depot and get some carpet glue (comes in a 1 gallon can) that applies with a trowel. I have done this job in 2 different boats and it will last longer than the new carpet.

When you cut your templates make the new carpet about 2 inches larger than the old and trim the excess when you are finished.

A re-carpeting job should only take about 45 minutes to do just the floor. What is the worst are all the accessory pieces that are covered.

dude, I recarpetted my '83 stars and stripes before selling it. I bought a roll of genuine MC carpet from my local dealer. Ripped the old carpet up using a builders trowel, making sure I got rid of all the old adhesive at the same time (the using of a razor blade is good here but make sure you don't end up cutting down into the fibreglass). Once you have the carpet out give the floor a good wash with saop and then clean with meths or something similar to make sure it is absolutely clean. Then take the roll of carpet you have just bought and depending on your style of boat (a V Drive X-star will be different for example) cut your carpet into two pieces. you will then be able to carpet down one side with the join being absolutely straight from front to back and joining in the middle of the boat ie around the pylon.

To get the right shape/sizing simply lay the new carpet in the boat without adhesive and cut roughly to size/shape of the boat.

I used a strong spray adhesive (about eight cans for the whole boat) spraying two coats and working about a a foot and a half at a time. Obviously lay one side of the boat (front to back at once - more manageable that way). I would recommend starting at the back of the boat and work forwards, spraying a foot or so at a time. The spray I used demanded two coats on the floor/wall of the boat and one coat on the back sticking edge of the carpet. Wait a couple of minutes then start to lay the carpet - it helps if you have something to apply pressure to the carpet (I used a full beer can, which did the trick nicely) Once you have stuck a particular section (wehich you will have trimmed roughly earlier) cut it more specifically to size and you may need at this point to apply more spray adhesive to get the edges to stick well ........ the struggle comes when you get mear the front as you have to work the carpet so it fits with the curve of the side wall and the curve of the bottom of the boat (around the drivers seat forwards). FYI I laid the carpet on the base of the boat and then cut along the edge of the floor before laying the wall section adjoining to meet the floor (hard to explain but you'll know what I mean when you get stuck in.

The second half of the boat is of course exactly the same. It took me about a day with a little help ...... if you are in a boat like a Prostar 205 then you will have to remove all the interior side walls in order to lay it properly on the older boats there isn't so much of the false walls that MC put in their later boats.

Go for it matey, all I will say is where the two halves of carpet meet in the middle of the boat ie a line running fron to back through the pylon make sure you put an extra layer of adhesive down as this is a section that will be hammered so it needs some good stick.

Apologies for the oong e-mail ....... pretty simple but labour intensive job and you get great results once completed.

Good Luck!!
Matt